The "Seaside Resort of the 20000": Fordism, Mass Tourism and the Third Reich

Microsoft Word - 04.Spode.docFordism, Mass Tourism and the Third Reich
Hasso Spode Today, sociologists and economists tell us that we live in a „post“ society: postmodern, post-Fordist, postindustrial. If 'industrial' means coal mines and steel mills, this is not entirely wrong, but if it means the basic principles that govern our world, it is a fallacy, mixing the ever changing surface with the hidden structure. This structure is known under terms such as division of labor, efficiency or rationality. Many elements of this structure can be traced back to the Early Modern Period, some even to the Middle Ages and to Antiquity; its concrete shape, however, emerged step by step since late 18th century, and its victory can be dated - metaphorically, if not literally – as having taken place in just one year: 1936. In 1936, the structure finally exceeded the boundaries of the sphere of production and started to invade the whole rest of the world - the computer was born. One might think that the history of the computer does not have much to do with the history of tourism. In fact, there are strong links. Although tourism is regarded (and sold to us) as a counterpart to our frantic, efficient everyday life, as a realm of relaxation, of playful values and practices - as a mass phenomenon, as everybody knows, tourism and tourists are inevitably part of the very same machinery which they try to elude. The flight from efficiency is organized by efficient means. Let us have a look at these means1. "Modern Times" In February 1936, Charlie Chaplin's new film was released: 'Modern Times', the tragicomic parable about depravation through technology. Chaplin succumbs to the rhythm of the assembly lines; the machinery runs faster and faster, culminating in an apocalypse. The film was a huge success; for it dealt with a topic that was the subject of much controversy on both sides of the Atlantic: "rationalization". It was not only about the new form of factory organization. Rationalization had entered consciousness as something that permeates all "spheres" of life. Some, such as Max and his less known brother Alfred Weber, saw rationalization as a fatal destiny, forcing people into an "iron cage" of dependency, ushering in the "domestication of the world", wiping out all freedom and spontaneity. However, others, such as Frederick Winslow Taylor, saw rationalization as the vehicle that would transport humanity into a happy future of full department stores and order books. This debate can be traced back at least as far as Rousseau and Voltaire and is, as we know, still unresolved2. Between the wars, however, it dominated thought with tremendous force. For levels of meaning were bestowed on the concept of rationalization: Firstly: a logical meaning to refer to the basics, the universal principle of efficiency. Secondly: a philosophical meaning was sometimes linked to this first level; its purpose was to refer to the interpretation of long-term historical processes in the Western World (as analyzed by Marx, Weber, Durkheim and others). Thirdly: a technological or economic meaning to refer to the most recent stage in this process (as analyzed by Taylor, Münsterberg, Gilbreth, Bedeaux and others).
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Finally, mentioned here only for the sake of completeness: a psychological meaning, namely the use of pseudo-rational justifications for irrational behaviour (as defined by Sigmund Freud). The rationalization discourse between the wars generally referred to the third level, meaning mass production, meaning "Taylorism" and "Fordism"3. These were the catch words which stirred up the public, frightened the workers, inspired the managers and divided parties and trade unions. The basic principle, however, still did not move the people; it still remained in expert circles. But it proved to be highly universal - the grammar of rationalization became visible. This grammar is based on the idea of disassembling and recombining: Breaking complex processes down into their individual components, then combining them again to form a new structure. That which is superficial can be discarded; that which is mixed can be separated. The processes, dirtied with significance, with meaning and morality, with traditions and arbitrariness, these processes have been melted down to the pure scaffolding of relations – as translucent as crystal and as unsurprising as double-entry bookkeeping4. The practical application of this idea also requires internal transport systems and a central clock, a metronome which coordinates the machinery. Essential aspects of the grammar of rationalization were formulated by economists and mathematicians in the 19th century and, at the same time, practically applied to assembly-line work – first, in Cincinnati’s and Chicago's slaughterhouses, and from 1913 onwards, in Henry Ford's car factory in Detroit. The assembly line was less an application of theories; rather, the new organization of logic and the new organization of work resulted from the same Zeitgeist. But, in turn, the assembly line directly inspired the attempt to automate not only production, but also thinking. In 1936, as already mentioned, the computer was born, i.e., the universal calculating machine (a device so universal that not only can it count numbers, but it can also play music, show movies or process texts like this one). The concept of the computer was simultaneously worked out in England, the USA and Germany. The mathematicians Alan Turing and Emil Post designed their computer theories on a sheet of paper (initially in order to solve the problem: "what does calculation mean?"), whereas the engineer Konrad Zuse started to build a real "calculating-plan based calculator" out of sheet metal, driven by the motor of a vacuum cleaner5. All three had the new, radical forms of the division of labor in mind and their concepts were more or less identical, using components such as interchangeable programs, storage areas, processing units, in and output units, central clocks, and foremost: the principle of decomposing every operation into its basic elements. As everybody knows, their invention heralded a new era - from now onwards, thought, too, was to be taken over by machines. And a further pioneering invention is associated with the year 1936: the holiday machine. On May 2nd, Robert Ley, leader of the German Labor Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront), laid a foundation stone on the island of Rügen. "The most colossal seaside resort in the world" was to be built by the Baltic Sea. Millions of German workers were to recuperate here and simultaneously demonstrate the superiority of that which is genuine, national socialism. Such a task had nothing to do with the nostalgic ideology of „blood and soil“; it required cold-blooded, modern solutions – it required a holiday from the assembly line. "Kraft durch Freude" Two years earlier special trains had rolled all through Germany. Within a week, ten thousand "worker- vacationers" were carted from the grey cities to the clear mountain air. This cheap travel was accompanied by an unbelievable torrent of propaganda. The organizer was the Deutsche Arbeitsfront6. More precisely, the travel department of the affiliated leisure organization with the bombastic name Nationalsozialistische Gemeinschaft "Kraft durch Freude" (National-Socialist Community "Strength through Joy"), abbreviated as NSG "KdF" or simply KdF.
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KdF had been founded in November 1933, thus marking the provisional end of a harsh internal dispute on the role of the Arbeitsfront, an offspring of the small National Socialist trade union of the Weimar Republic. Ley's plans to form an almighty, corporativistic Nazi union had been thwarted: the Labor Front, although the biggest and the wealthiest organization in the "New State", was reduced to a mere Party's instrument of propaganda and means for controlling the workplace. But how could the Labor Front "win the hearts of the workers" without supporting their interests? For it had to keep out of the industrial disputes, so the Labor Front looked for another sphere of activity - and found leisure time. Of course, Ley did not admit his defeat when he held his speech7 at the KdF’s founding congress. Instead, he made it look like a victory opening the prospect of a "people's community" (Volksgemeinschaft), where all Germans will have equal access to the cultural assets. In his speech, Ley drew a line between the ongoing debates on the perils of rationalization - the loss of "joy" at work, the "ruin" of physical and mental health, the increase in "nervousness" – on one hand, and, on the other, on the justified "envy" and the "inferiority complex" of the workers, fueled by "Marxist" ideology. By offering the masses all sorts of once privileged leisure activities, Ley announced, KdF would become a decisive tool for overcoming class struggles and for improving health and performance by assuring the "complete relaxation of body and soul". At that time, holiday trips did not have high priority among the KdF’s planned activities. In particular, the head of the new organization (and also chief of the Reichs-Radio Chamber), Horst Dressler- Andress, primarily sought to bring "high" culture – the arts, literature and classical music - to the workers; indeed, KdF arranged concerts and exhibitions in the factory halls (even of „degenerated“ artists like Nolde). However, the focus of the activities was changed quickly, since in May 1934, the first KdF trains had met with an overwhelmingly positive response. The initiators - foremost Ley, Dressler-Andress, and the head of the travel department, Bodo Lafferentz - were themselves surprised by their success and promptly expanded the travel program8. They were pleased that they had stumbled into an enormous gap in the market. From now on, the founding of KdF was traced back to a Führer's order: "I want every worker to get sufficient holiday time, and I want everything to be done so that these holidays and his other leisure times become a real recreation."9 With four fifth of KdF's turnover, the travel department (Amt Reisen, Wandern, Urlaub) soon became the most important of all of KdF’s branches; many people only regarded KdF as a state-owned travel agency. In 1934, the Deutschland-Berichte of the exiled Social Democratic Party (Sopade) already noted that the holiday trips make KdF an important propaganda tool, whereas the other activities - such as sports or theater - are hardly ever mentioned in the people's chats10. The idea of turning the holiday trip into a mass-produced article was not at all new; in the end it goes back to the first package tour organizers, among whom Thomas Cook became the most successful one after he started his famous excursion to a temperance meeting in Loughborough in 1841. However, organized holiday trips had not yet been able to achieve a social breakthrough. Although, since the late 19th century, British workers and employees flooded the seaside resorts on Sundays, these excursions were far from bourgeois tourism. With respect to time and the monetary budget, and to the practices and the meanings, the 'proper' holiday trips remained a privilege of small minorities11. Organizing 'bourgeois-style' tourism as mass tourism was first put to the test on a larger scale in Fascist Italy. Since 1931, the Duce's leisure organization Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro (OND) sent "popular trains" through the country12. In the first year more than half a million travelers took advantage of the discount of up to 50%. However, the living standards of the "masses" were too low to afford such a trip without substantial subsidies from their employers; after the initial euphoria had dissipated the number of participants declined to about 100000 per year. But the concept of "popular trains" remained fascinating. When the Nazis picked up the Fascist model, they did so with German perfection and rapidly overtook their prototype13. Soon "Kraft durch Freude"
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became the world's biggest tour operator14. With an average of 35 Reichsmark for an all-inclusive package tour in 1934 the KdF prices fell by approximately two thirds compared to the "cheap" tour operators in the Weimar Republic - not to speak of the prevailing individual 'bourgeois' tourism! In the first years the program was expanded vigorously. The peak was reached in 1937 when nearly 1.8 million enjoyed the KdF holidays and an additional 8.4 million the KdF excursions (in terms of figures this corresponded to a fifth of the German population older than 15). Obviously, this was an upper limit which the regime was neither able nor willing to exceed. The capacities of the transport systems (in particular the railways which had to serve the growing needs of the Wehrmacht), as well as the spending power of the lower classes did not allow for a further increase without vast subsidies by the Arbeitsfront or the employers. In the last two prewar years the numbers of KdF travelers slightly declined. However, the figures were unique at that time and are still impressive. KdF trip participants Year Participants (mill.) Travels(a) Short trips(b) 1934 0.5 1.9 1935 1.1 5.2 1936 1.4 7.3 1937 1.8 8.4 1938(c) 1.6 8.7 1939(d) 1.2 6.2 Source: calculations from Spode 1982, p.298 a) Holiday trips, including cruises, skiing holidays etc. (3 to 21, mostly 7 to 12 days). b) Excursions and hiking tours (1 or 2 days; hiking tours sometimes 6 days or more). c) Including 0.3 mill. participants in longer travels and 1.6 million in short trips from the annexed territories (esp. Austria). d) Not comparable with the other years: Firstly, it is uncertain whether participants from the annexed territories are included. Secondly, on the 1st of September, KdF travel stopped due to the war (in 1940 it started again on a smaller scale, partly in cooperation with the Wehrmacht; global figures are not available). By the outbreak of the war, some 8 million journeys had been sold by KdF, almost a tenth of which - more than 700000 - were spectacular cruises abroad with the KdF fleet. Taking all trips together even more than 45 million had traveled with KdF in the prewar years15. (In comparison, in 1937, the largest British non-profit operator, the Worker's Travel Association, organized 61000 trips: this corresponded to 4% of the KdF trips - not including the short trips sold that year.) Of course, only the longer holiday trips - as the mass produced copy of the 'bourgeois' way to travel - were really a sensation. To provide some examples: a seven day all-inclusive tour to beautiful Reit im Winkel cost 28 RM; ten days at the seaside resort of Heiligenhafen 44 RM; a seven day "reduced offer" into the Swabian Jura only 16 RM. In addition to those 'normal' holiday trips there were also ‘special’ tours, e.g., an eight-day skiing course in Bavaria costing 48 RM. The absolute highlight, though, became the cruises. They were not included in the original plans. The first KdF ships put to sea for the Isle of Wight in May 1934 - exactly one year after the smashing of the unions. A seven-day cruise to Norway cost 42 to 63 RM (calculated from the distance to the harbor of departure), an eighteen day journey to Madeira, a traditional destination of the English upper class, about 120 RM16.
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With great relish, propaganda cited the travel program of the Social Democrat trade unions (ADAV) for the year 1933: only twelve tours had been announced with prices ranging from 42 RM - a three day excursion - to 350 RM. And now: workers strolling through exclusive resorts and spas, tanning themselves on the decks of luxury cruisers! In the beginning, many people, particularly those hostile to the new regime, thought this was a mere propagandist lie. But they soon learned that it was at least partially true when posters lured: "Now you, too, can travel!" or more poetically: "Weave your own dream carpet!" The impression was so strong that planned was to send a political detainee from Dachau on a trip to Norway - for "he is an obdurate communist and may be convinced by the facts"17. The underground opposition, on the other hand, was alarmed, worrying that this could really work. The Sopade-Berichte were at least ambiguous about KdF: "Some get enthusiastic, some grumble." According to the correspondents, the regime's social policy was usually harshly criticized by the workers, whereas KdF is often reported to be a great success among the workers. Former union officials were told: "Now we see what our subscriptions are really good for." From Southern Bavaria, e.g., it is said that "according to the concurring reports of all (Social Democrat) comrads, KdF is a positive achievement for the regime. These trips get more and more popular, and how cheap they are is astonishing." To understand this euphoria one should keep in mind that although excursions and even short holiday trips were nothing new for blue-collar workers, longer 'proper' tourist travel, however, remained in the realm of rather small social groups18: the upper classes, the old and, increasingly, the new middle classes, as the ´harbingers´ of modern lifestyle and mass consumption19. Although tourist travel had remarkably increased in the last five decades, the boundary between blue and white-collar workers had not really been challenged; the holiday trip was thought of as something for the "moneybags". No wonder the propaganda could now chime: "Travel is no longer a privilege for the wealthy classes. Thanks to KdF every national comrade is now able to partake in tourism."20 This was certainly in keeping with the perceptions of the vast majority of the people, both in Germany and abroad. Of all Nazi mass organizations, KdF became by far the most popular. And in addition, the holiday entitlements for the workers were greatly improved. In 1938 more than 87% of the workers in the metal-processing industry enjoyed a yearly holiday of six to twelve days21. Even the International Labor Office in Geneva had to willy-nilly acknowledge the German holiday policy as exemplary. Socialism of Deed KdF provided indisputable evidence of how effectively the grammar of rationalization can be applied to the production of the consumer good 'holiday trips'; just as Henry Ford had demonstrated with his Tin Lizzie how one could turn an unattainable object of desire into a mass-produced article. The Nazi version of Fordism was called "Socialism of Deed" (Sozialismus der Tat). This term suggests that National Socialism - in contrast to the labor movement - really improves the situation of the workers, and thus makes the working class and their "Marxist ideology" obsolete. The "cultural mission" of KdF, Reichsleiter Dressler-Andress wrote, is "to overcome the old contrast between work and man22". Perhaps Dressler-Andress really had a "revolution" in mind which breaks with the curse of alienation in industrial society (Rosenberg called him a "cultural Bolshevik"). However, more often and less pathetically, "Socialism of Deed" was simply defined in terms of "standard of living". In this connection the regime concentrated on reducing the costs of some selected, prestigious commodities to such an extent that they could symbolically represent the breakthrough to mass consumption that the worker parties had failed to give the masses: radios, cars, and travel. Only in the latter case did Germany actually achieve an exceptional position.
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To quote Hitler: „The National Socialist state, the National Socialist community (Nationalsozialistische Volksgemeinschaft) are thus endeavouring to make everything accessible to our national comrades (Volksgenossen) that was formerly the privilege of a limited social class. (...) This is an objective that in the beginning appeared to be unimaginable. At that time there were not few who believed: this program looks so much like Marxist promises, that it cannot come true. Well, my national comrades, it is truly on the way to being fulfilled!“23 Travel became a substitute both for higher wages and for civil and social rights. As Kühnl already put it: the Labor Front "was not to produce social justice but the illusion of social justice". The ideological framework was formed by the ideal of the classless "people's community"24: In order to disguise the abolishment of…